Meta Responds to Twitter CEO's Threat of Lawsuit

In response to billionaire Elon Musk's threat of lawsuit regarding Threads - Meta's new platform, the company representative affirmed that no employee working for this application was ever an employee of Twitter.

Threads app icon on phone screen. (Source: AFP)

Just hours after Meta launched Threads on July 5, Twitter threatened to sue Meta - the parent company of social networks Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp.

Threads is expected to “overtake” Twitter, which is struggling under the leadership of its boss Elon Musk; and Mr. Musk’s lawyer on July 6 accused Meta of “stealing Twitter’s trade secrets and intellectual property.”

Threads is off to an impressive start: The app has racked up 30 million signups as of the morning of July 6, including brands, journalists, and celebrities.

Also on the morning of July 6, Threads was the top free app on Apple's App Store and the top trending topic on rival social network Twitter.

According to CNN , the atmosphere on Threads on its launch day was like the “first day of school” with a series of users “rushing” to try out the experience and post their first “posts”.

Many people have asked early on whether Threads could become a “killer” that would determine Twitter’s fate.

Meanwhile, Independent quoted a source saying that Twitter's lawyer Alex Spiro sent a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, arguing that Meta had "systematically, willfully and unlawfully misappropriated Twitter's trade secrets and other intellectual property".

“Twitter intends to vigorously enforce its intellectual property rights and requires Meta to take immediate steps to cease using any of Twitter’s trade secrets, or other ‘top secret’ information,” Attorney Spiro wrote in the letter.

“Twitter reserves all rights, including, without limitation, the right to seek both civil and injunctive relief without further notice to prevent Meta from retaining, disclosing, or using its intellectual property,” Mr. Spiro added.

Spiro alleges that Meta hired dozens of former Twitter employees who “had and continue to have access to Twitter’s trade secrets and other highly confidential information.”

“Meta’s Threads clone app” was built with the “specific purpose” of using “Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property to accelerate the development of Meta’s competing app,” Spiro said.

This “violates both state and federal law, as well as those employees’ existing obligations to Twitter,” the attorney argued.

Andy Stone, Meta's director of communications, responded to the claims on July 7 by saying that Threads' engineering team does not include any former Twitter employees.

“To be clear: None of Threads' engineers are former Twitter employees — that simply isn't the case,” Stone wrote on Threads.

Meanwhile, according to the Independent , Mr. Musk responded to Twitter's threat of litigation against Meta by saying: "Competition is good, cheating is not."

Source: https://baoquocte.vn/meta-phan-hoi-truoc-loi-de-doa-kien-tung-cua-ong-chu-twitter-233820.html